Russia to launch world's most powerful laser station, open for foreign scientists

Called UFL-2M, the station will have 192 intense laser beams, will be the size of two football fields and as tall as a 10-storey building.

The scientists have already completed the project engineering and design and sent the project to manufacturers. The construction-assembly stage is set for 2015. And the first line is to be launched in 2017, Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency reports on June 30. The station is supposed to become fully operational by 2019, initially, the deadline was 2020.

"This unique equipment will be used for fundamental research of high-temperature dense plasma. It will be a center for joint work of not only Russian, but foreign scientists," the agency quotes Sergei Garanin, the chief constructor of Russia's Federal Nuclear Centre as saying.

The station will be capable of directing 2.8 million joules of ultraviolet laser energy compared to the output of the similar US and French stations of under two mega joules.

The Sarov Federal Nuclear Centre in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region has been chosen as the site for the station. For the last 40 years Sarov has become a location for Russia's powerful lasers and in 2004 the ground was turned into a technopark with 30 participating companies.

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